When I started in Photography I was told that it would be a lot of hard work. I grew up around my Dad and saw what the life of a photographer had in store. It had some amazing moments and it had some sad ones. Every business is like that, photography is no exception. Despite that, In my freshman year of College at MSU Bozeman I decided to go into photography. That was back in 2006. A couple of years, and a few thousands images later, I launched my blog in 2008. With the blog came all new challenges and a much steeper learning curve, as the pressure to succeed further grew. In 2009 I went from being just a wildlife photographer and went into Aviation, which was an huge mental switch. Aviation also brought on all new rewards. In the last six years many amazing things have happened. Between flying around in WWII airplanes, sitting on a rock in Alaska to photograph a critter that no one knows about but now people do, to doing a commercial shoot with Epson, and countless articles and photo projects since. The time has just flown by.
Last year my good friend Russell Brown at Adobe asked me if I would be interested in speaking at the Adobe booth in Las Vegas. Without a doubt the answer was yes. Albeit I was nervous as ever at the thought but the opportunity would only come once. It was at Las Vegas, at Photoshop World, at the Adobe booth, that I got the next big opportunity. There in the crowd was Scott Kelby, and as I was focused on the lesson I was teaching, I saw he was smiling. Afterward, he called me over and asked, “do you want to speak at the Kelby theater next year?” The answer was again yes! Albeit I was even more nervous. Last week it became official. I am now a Photoshop World Instructor, part of a group of some of the best photographers in the world. What could be better? While I don’t know what I will be teaching yet, I can’t wait to be able to teach amongst so many other amazing photographers. Thank You Russell, Scott and everyone else at Kelbyone for such amazing opportunities!